33. Silver on the wall
33
SILVER ON THE WALL
When they reached the shelter where Varriguhl had gathered the other dragonrider candidates, they discovered the headmaster had turned the rampant attack into an opportunity to give a lecture.
This particular shelter was unusually comfortable, as if the headmaster had long since decided that if forced to remain in such a place, he’d do so in style. Cushions littered the floor, along with blankets, chairs, and niches clearly designed for naps. Unlike some shelters Anahrod had seen, entering this one did not require navigating a staircase, which made sense considering the headmaster’s mobility needs.
Students were crying, holding pillows, blankets, each other.
Anahrod could hardly blame them.
The headmaster, though…
Anahrod forcibly reminded herself that she shouldn’t draw attention to herself, that she shouldn’t grab the bastard by the shoulders and demand to know what he thought he was doing.
He was still teaching class—but he was using the attack to do it.
Magic turned one entire wall in the room into a mirrorlike surface. This mirror didn’t reflect the room but showed a slowly rotating view of Yagra’hai.
A giant scrying mirror, showing the rampant attack as it was happening.
Modelakast was still alive.
The dragons had made a serious effort at rectifying that. Burns from Tiendremos branched and snaked across one of Modelakast’s wings, and she was bleeding freely. She just didn’t seem to care.
“—one of Segramikar’s clutches. Young, as these things are measured,” Varriguhl said. “She did not yet have a rider but had expressed interest in this year’s candidates. And this is why—” He broke off when he saw Gwydinion. “Doreyl, you’re still alive.”
Anahrod couldn’t tell whether Varriguhl approved. The other students, though, were less ambiguous, immediately swarming him, some with questions, but most just wanting to express their relief that he was safe. Kimat was one of the latter—Anahrod was surprised at how happy the tear-streaked girl looked.
“Class, quiet down!” Varriguhl snapped. “Sit down.” The headmaster wheeled himself toward Gwydinion. He gave both Anahrod and Sicaryon, officially Gwydinion’s bodyguards, an approving nod. “I’m sure the young man’s parents will be relieved to know their money was well spent. Are you uninjured, Doreyl?”
Gwydinion nodded. “Yes, Headmaster.”
Varriguhl’s eyes softened fractionally, a moment of sympathy for the boy.
Then he immediately launched into: “What did the augury say?”
Gwydinion cast about the room as if he might find the right answer scribbled on the walls somewhere. He gave a minuscule headshake. “I’m sorry, Headmaster. They never got as far as the sacrifice.”
“I don’t know,” Sicaryon muttered under his breath, “does dragon count?”
“What was that?” Varriguhl questioned sharply.
Anahrod would’ve hit Sicaryon if that wouldn’t have made the situation worse. Instead, all she could do was glare with great intention.
Sicaryon shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t meant to be overheard. “There was uh—a dragon was killed in the temple,” he explained. “Disemboweled.”
The blood drained from Anahrod’s face. She tightened her hand on her sword hilt until her knuckles turned white. She hadn’t thought about the dragon’s death that way, but now it seemed obvious.
No dragon would ever pick Gwydinion after this.
Dragons were no more immune to superstition than humans. How easy would it be to gaze at the body of a dragon, dead and gutted, in the same temple of Eannis that should’ve seen the sacrifice of a smaller stand-in, and think that yes, this was meant to be the augury? She couldn’t imagine any dragon thinking it was a good augury, a sign of Eannis’s favor. It was much more likely to be a dire warning, Eannis spelling out just how much of a threat one human could be.
Then, at some point, some enterprising soul would figure out—just as Ris had—that Gwydinion Doreyl was the brother of Anahrod the Wicked. His fate would be sealed. Gwydinion was in no danger of a dragon ever picking him to be their rider.
But if he didn’t become a rider, by law he went to the Church. That would be its own death sentence, because even if he never gave them cause to declare him a heretic, they’d invent one.
Anahrod should’ve run with Gwydinion. With an acid dragon, no one but Naeron would be truly certain that Gwydinion hadn’t died in the attack.
But she hadn’t, and couldn’t—the moment Gwydinion left the school, the heist team’s permissions left with him.
While all these thoughts raced through her head, Varriguhl narrowed his eyes at Sicaryon. “That’s an interesting accent. Where are you from?”
Sicaryon just smiled. “I’ve lived in Snowfell since I was a child, but my parents are immigrants from Mirorweal.”
“Mirorweal? I’ve never heard of the place.”
“I’m not surprised,” Sicaryon said. “It’s a long way to the north.”
And also, was likely a name that Sicaryon had just invented.
Someone in the room screamed.
“Oh no,” Gwydinion said.
Anahrod’s eyes snapped back to the scrying mirror. She didn’t see Tiendremos anymore. She wondered if he’d been injured or if he’d traded off with some other dragon. At some point in the fighting, someone’s attack must have cracked open a section of ground; Modelakast breathed into the area revealed.
A human area, Anahrod realized. One of the underground human zones. She felt sick.
That feeling only intensified when another dragon came into view, flying straight for Modelakast. If the rampant dragon was young, this one was a child, barely old enough to fly on its own, barely more than a hatchling. It was the dragon equivalent of Gwydinion, and it was being incredibly reckless.
The dragon’s coloring was different than Modelakast’s—green—but the shiny black stripes were the same. So not just any hatchling, but one of Modelakast’s own, likely convinced that they could somehow snap their mother out of her rampage.
Modelakast’s head whipped around, and she screamed at her child. From the look in the dragon’s eyes, she neither recognized nor held a single tender thought toward the hatchling. Dimly in the distance, Anahrod felt the dragon’s anger, weaker only in that she was tiring, not calming down.
The first blast of acid caught the dragon hatchling straight on. Under most circumstances, that would’ve finished matters. But as this was Modelakast’s child, the acid only pushed the tiny dragon backward. The child understood the threat, though, even if it didn’t understand the reason. It tried to fly backward, to escape its mother’s rage.
Modelakast surged forward, claws extended, teeth bared.
Anahrod wanted to scream at Varriguhl to turn it off, to stop watching. One student screamed. Anahrod could only sympathize.
The dragon hatchling flew backward, but wasn’t watching where it was going—it smacked into a stone tower and fell. The mother pounced—with the size difference between them, she was as likely to swallow her child whole as to claw it to pieces.
“Don’t watch,” Anahrod told Gwydinion.
A flash of gold crossed between the mother and her child.
Peralon.
The tiny figure on the dragon’s back had to be Ris, although Anahrod couldn’t make out any greater detail.
[Not today. As the humans say, pick on someone your own size.]
Modelakast changed targets without hesitation, giving the little hatchling the opening it needed to scramble away. The students’ cheers were short-lived, however, because the fighting was far from finished: Modelakast raked her claws over Peralon.
Anahrod made a noise as the claws struck true, but slid away harmlessly. A wave of magical energy spread out over Peralon’s body in time with the attack, something different from the dragon’s normal gold scales. It looked like someone had placed an invisible shield over the dragon’s body, a fractal spiral of energy only visible in the moment of being struck.
“Interesting,” Varriguhl murmured.
Modelakast leaped at Peralon, outrage building on top of outrage in reaction to her first attack’s failure. She grappled with him, raising her hind legs in the same maneuver that had killed the white dragon.
This, too, slid away harmlessly.
Peralon returned the grab, allowed Modelakast to rake while he pulled her into the air. He appeared to be trying to force her out of the city, or at least out of the more populated areas. Admittedly, he could only drag her so far—neither dragon would want to stray so far that they hit the storm wall surrounding the mountaintop.
Modelakast untangled herself from Peralon enough to pull her head back and breathe, yellow liquid splashing over his body—and across his back.
“No!” Varriguhl gave Anahrod a sharp look, one familiar to any student who’d ever talked too loud in a library. She felt a hand snake around her waist as Sicaryon came up from behind, taking one of her hands so she’d have something to squeeze besides a threatening sword.
The acid fell away from Peralon. Ris was still on his back, but from this distance it was impossible to tell if the woman was fine, or injured, or dead.
Except, no. If Peralon was the one using magic, he would’ve protected Ris, and if Ris was doing it, she’d have included herself in the spell. Ris was fine.
[Hold on. I don’t care to fight her here.]
Anahrod exhaled. Peralon wouldn’t be talking to Ris like that if she was injured.
“Sunshine…” Gwydinion murmured. Kimat, who somehow was standing right next to him, nodded in agreement.
“That is the rider,” Varriguhl said. “That is the rider’s spellwork, warding their dragon with perfect synchronization. Better than any I’ve ever seen before.” He leaned forward in his chair.
“What does a gold dragon breathe?” a student asked.
Anahrod hadn’t the least idea.
“First, remember your lessons. Color may suggest elemental affinity, but it does not predict elemental affinity.” In a much quieter and significantly more annoyed voice, Varriguhl murmured, “Also, I don’t know. He’s listed in very few records.”
Peralon had dragged Modelakast to an abandoned estate, but that meant little if he couldn’t hold her attention. He seemed singularly equipped for that, however.
He was much faster. Combined with Ris’s magical wards and his own speed, Modelakast suddenly found it difficult to land any attacks at all.
“Where is everyone?” Gwydinion called out. “Tiendremos was there earlier. What happened to him?”
“Injured,” Varriguhl answered. “Few wish to fight a rampant dragon.” His face twisted with bitterness. “Especially not a dragon who spits acid. It’s a distinctly unpleasant affinity.”
“Aren’t they all,” Anahrod chuntered. Sicaryon pinched her waist as a reminder to stop talking.
As if he were in any position to judge, but she didn’t call him on it, because he was also correct.
In some ways, Peralon had the same problem as his opponent. Modelakast was obnoxiously fast, and by playing a defensive game, Peralon wasn’t landing many hits of his own. Whatever his breath weapon was, he didn’t seem inclined to use it.
At some point, the acid dragon realized Peralon had a rider, and that said rider was therefore a better target. She switched from breathing acid to throwing things—boulders, walls, huge handfuls of dirt—trying to knock Ris from her harness. She must have come close, too, because Peralon veered away to interpose his own body between the rampant dragon and Ris, literally showing his underbelly.
Modelakast screamed triumphantly and launched herself at Peralon.
Except a vast ice sheet formed across Modelakast’s tail, pinning it to the ground. The attack hadn’t come from Peralon, who seemed just as surprised as the acid dragon.
Neveranimas had arrived.